Chapter Eighteen

Project Overview: Untitled Document is a serial comedy novel dealing with the sort of topics that we so frequently make fun of here at Something Awful. This Chapter: The rising action continues in this double sized chapter of Untitled Document. Will the next chapter be the exciting climax? The chapter after that? Who knows?! I certainly don't.

"Echo leader, echo leader, duck out and burn, you've got multiple bogies closing from your eight low." Major Walter "Tigger" Tiggs was flying lead on bravo flight and could see the enemy fighters coming in no more than a hundred meters off the water. "Jesus, duck fast Boomer, their climb rate is insane."

Tiggs rolled away from a broadside collision course with the alien interceptors as they shot up in front of him, going nose up at close to mach four. The gee bladders in his suit inflated up to his thighs as he continued the roll and evened out at 500. Tiggs glanced back to see Lieutenant Miranda "Hellcat" Paulus' Raptor roll onto his wing and do a recognition wiggle.

Echo flight dropped noses into the oncoming alien fighters, flickering streams of tracer fire shuddering out of their fuselage gun ports. Above them, alpha flight climbed on burners in an effort to gain altitude and give the alien fighters a second tier to combat. The flat black bat-shapes of the enemy interceptors tore through echo flight as if they weren't even there. Janklow's fighter shredded at point black range in front of one of the fighters, leaving behind a plummeting umbrella shaped cloud of debris that the enemy punched through unharmed.

Boomer tried to ram his Raptor into one of the other three fighters and ended up getting a lesson in the seemingly impossible nimbleness of the enemy craft. It ducked under his wing by scant inches, flopped up right behind him, and then spun around to pepper his tail with a fusillade of glowing green projectiles. Boomer's Raptor shook as its tail section came apart and he ejected a split second before fire flooded his fuel lines. Tigger caught a last final glimpse of the black ejection seat losing a race against the growing ball of flames and shrapnel.

"Shit." Tiggs jinked away from one of the alien fighters as it shot past him at a dead seven and then zipped up to engage alpha. "Alpha, they're coming up underneath you, watch your asses."

Tiggs gave Miranda a thumbs up and laid his Raptor on its ass just as the engines ramped from supersonic cruise to full burn. As he had hoped the alien fighter was cutting its velocity to ease in behind alpha and shadow them. The bastards were playing with them, but he was about to give at least one of them something to remember mankind by.

"Hellcat, stay on me and keep your eyes on the screens. You'll see the green flicker before you see those little fuckers moving."

Tiggs heated up the AMRAAMs sitting on his wings. He knew from watching top clearance gun cam footage that he'd have to practically ram his nose up their ass to have any chance of hitting even with a full IFF lock. He closed to two clicks and the enemy bird was still too busy playing with alpha to notice his approach. Tiggs kept his radar painters clear of the quavering tail of the bogey just in case they could read acquisitions.

"I'll go at 400, break off when you see me drop."

"Roger that, Tigger." Hellcat sounded as calm and collected as always. "Hang on boss man, got a mover coming in high on our-"

The link went to static and Hellcat's Raptor disappeared in fire. A shadow streaked past behind Tiggs. Up ahead one of alpha flight came apart like confetti. No fire, just a puff of polymer and electronics and a mist of fuel. JP8 pattered across Tiggs' canopy and a few pieces of the alpha thunked dangerously close to his vector nozzles. The enemy ahead of him switched to the remaining member of alpha.

"Fuck me, get him off of me Tiggs!" Walker was verbally shitting himself as he jinked left and right trying to stay out of the enemy's line of fire.

"Cut your speed to two-thirds on my mark." Tiggs glanced at the rangefinder on his HUD. 600 meters out, holding.

"Cut it? You've got to be fuck-"

"Mark!"

Despite his protestation Walker complied, dropping to supersonic cruise. The enemy bird gamely followed, choosing that moment to lock in hard on Walker's six and begin hitting him with the eerie quavering green fire. Tiggs kept on it, full ahead, and at 350 he dropped all four missiles and opened up with his guns. Green fire danced up Walker's fuselage and burst his cockpit canopy like a blister. He dropped down and spun hard as vectors misfired. The alien swooped over the hump of Walker's debris plane and right into the nose of two of Tiggs' missiles. One hammered through the small port side wing and the other went right up the alien's shimmering exhaust nozzle. There was a visible shockwave, a thump of turbulence, and a perfect red ring of smoke puffed out of the back of the alien fighter. It stumbled oddly in mid-air and then dropped flat down on its nose, falling towards the sea like a dart.